Israel’s Ministry of Tourism helps organize a mass event in Arad to begin the campaign.
(Courtesy of www.TheDeadSeaMuseum.com) www.TheDeadSeaMuseum.comand social entrepreneur Ari Leon Fruchter have begun a project to build a museum dedicated to preserving and restoring the Dead Sea in the Dead Sea region of the Israeli City of Arad.
Fruchter, who founded The Dead Sea Museum, worked with the Israel Ministry of Tourism and Arad Mayor Nissan Ben Hamo to organize a massive photo shoot in the mountains overlooking the Dead Sea. The shoot highlights the issues facing the Sea and the endeavors to restore it, aiming to draw needed attention to the daunting prospect of an ever-receding Dead Sea. Once built, the museum, anticipated to cost about 50 million NIS, will be devoted to environmental art, new media art and artists who create Dead Sea-related art and ventures.
The photo project consisted of 200 enthusiastic contributors from all over Israel, representing diverse faiths, genders and backgrounds, who posed with the Sea and mountain range in the background.
In just 10 years, sea levels have drastically declined, leaving the region unrecognizable from the beauty that it once held. Massive sinkholes have now destroyed many areas that were once beautiful, with beaches and resorts for miles along the shore. Now, so much of the area is impossible to traverse, and even illegal to enter.
The project is a collaboration between Ben Hamo, the City of Arad, former Englewood resident Ari Leon Fruchter and Israel’s Ministry of Tourism. The new Dead Sea Museum is currently an online virtual museum hosting the photographer’s prior Dead Sea exhibition and will host select artists every six months on a rotating basis. It is in its early stages of being funded and physically developed and built in an area the Municipality of Arad helped secure.
Fruchter said: “I am excited that we are inspiring new life to, and hopefully preservation of, the Dead Sea and the Museum itself. I am hoping it will be a place that will continue to enthrall viewers and art collectors—and inspire the perpetuation of our Dead Sea.”
